Two Wheel Tuesday was awesome (that just happened to be during my bike riding years...sigh)

+2 Especially in the beginning when they used to show EVERY lap of EVERY race. I was addicted to the TV on Tuesday afternoons...until they started with the themed show(s) and that bald headed dude and started just showing racing highlights. I am sort of thankful because I was able to quit the Tuesday TV habit due to them tinkering and wrecking the perfect programming they had before....which cost them much less IMO by just airing the pre-broadcasted races as opposed to producing a show(s) and generating content!

It's starting to look as though these sports networks are going to take over the
cable and satellite menus. They're all running after ESPN's market share but ESPN
has been around (what?) 30+ years now and with it's association with ABC looks
to be in a solid position.

With all the sports channel expansion, however, we may only hope that things don't
get as diluted as they have with the cable "news" networks which seem to be in a
race to the bottom with FOX once again leading the way.

It seems all of them want a piece of MLB, NFL, NBA, etc. (stick & ball sports) but each
of these organizations also have their own 24/7 dedicated networks which brings things
back to NASCAR.

If NASCAR wants their product out in front of an audience 24/7, why not just start their
own network? They fully sucked all of the life out of Speed which was predictable and
reports are that networks they have contracts with to show their races aren't happy as
the audience is drifting away and NASCAR blocks up so much of their air time they have
no where to move.

The over saturation of TV sports may well be their undoing. Last year, under terms of the
new deal between the NFL and participating networks, they granted 500 (extra) hours of
TV broadcast time. So, the sports PR machines like ESPN start cranking up the NFL hype
as early as June and it's now in full pitch that training camps have started. Watching
ESPN today, one might think they were in mid-season as it is wall-to-wall NFL news and
what MLB players are going to be banned for PED's.

They're stepping all over the number one rule of marketing, over exposure cheapens
the product. Every event, no matter how insignificant, now get's virtual Super Bowl hype
which no event may ever live up to.

In late July, Speed employee Jessie Morrison scaled the large, red Speed sign outside the broadcast network’s Charlotte headquarters. She stretched out across it on her stomach, turned toward a camera and smiled.

Later, she posted the photo on Instagram with a simple caption: “Going to miss seeing this sign.”

The image and words captured the way that Morrison and many of her fellow Speed employees feel this summer. These are the final days of Speed. In less than two weeks, the 24-hour network no longer will exist in its current form. Many of its employees will be looking for new jobs.

Speed’s owner, Fox Sports, has decided there is more money to be had in a multisport channel. It will shutter the motorsports channel and convert it into Fox Sports 1 on Aug. 17.

The move brings an end to Speed’s nearly 18-year reign as the only motorsports channel on U.S. television. The move takes Charlotte’s only national cable channel dark. And it eliminates the only place in NASCAR’s backyard where people could spend their entire day talking about and working exclusively on TV motorsports.

Speed did not offer the best-paying jobs in cable. It was not the most-watched network in sports. But it was a place where people lived their passion — an office where Formula One wonks, motorcycle gearheads, NASCAR nuts and car-collection zealots gathered daily to determine how their passions played across the country.

Speed paid staff with a different type of currency — the type of stuff former Speed President Hunter Nickell called “psychic income.”

“It’s what made it exciting and fun, so when the end comes, it’s deflating,” said Nickell, who’s now with IMG College. “That isn’t questioning the business decision. The business decision makes sense.”

But it does explain why Morrison and a host of others have been snapping photos of the Speed sign outside the network’s headquarters. They will miss working for a network they loved.

Speed will sign off at 6 a.m. ET on Aug. 17 following a re-air of NASCAR Sprint Cup qualifying from Michigan International Speedway. At that point, the channel will simply morph into Fox Sports 1, ending a tumultuous 10 months during which employees’ emotions went from hope that there would be work for Speed staff in Charlotte to the reality that the Queen City didn’t fit into Fox Sports 1’s overall plans, at least not yet.

■ ■ ■

The brainchild of former ESPN President Roger Werner, Speed launched as a channel run by motorsports enthusiasts for motorsports enthusiasts. With some of the country’s biggest cable operators as initial investors, including Cox, Times Mirror and MediaOne, the channel had little trouble cutting deals with distributors.

The initial channel, known as Speedvision, debuted to 3.2 million homes on the last day of 1995 and targeted 18- to 49-year-old men who read the 200-plus national magazines devoted to motorsports, cars, planes, boats — just about anything with a motor. It featured lifestyle programs, news, live and taped competition, and was viewed by Werner as an immediate success.

“That original channel was the most successful consumer product that I’ve ever been associated with in 40 years of being in the packaged goods and media business,” Werner said. “That product resonated with its target audience like nothing else I’ve ever seen. It was immediately demanded by the target audience. We literally lit up phone banks and generated tremendous press and tremendous interest.”

Fox took control of the channel in 2001, renaming it Speed. The acquisition coincided with Fox’s initial six-year deal to broadcast NASCAR races, reported at the time as roughly $200 million a year, and indicated how bullish Fox was on the sport. As a result, Fox ramped up Speed’s focus on the sport, adding NASCAR shoulder programming and live truck races. It relocated the network from Stamford, Conn., to Charlotte, the home of most of NASCAR’s race teams and many of its drivers.

Speed’s distribution expanded to 50 million after Fox’s acquisition and increased to 70 million by 2007. It was doing well enough that in 2008 Fox built the network its own state-of-the-art studio in north Charlotte. It had three stages, control rooms outfitted with sophisticated Sony production systems and dedicated fiber that connected to a national control room in Los Angeles.

The new studio represented more than just the latest technology. For Speed’s 100-plus full-time employees in Charlotte, it was the first time everyone worked under the same roof, and it fostered a sense of camaraderie among the staff. Walking through the office, it was easy to overhear people talking about their favorite type of racing.

“NASCAR was the source of the majority of our motorsports ratings points, but that didn’t mean we wouldn’t have intense battles within our team about how we should cover open-wheel racing versus NASCAR,” Nickell said. “That didn’t stop anyone from being intense about wanting to cover more of other motorsports.”

But just a couple of months later, Speed’s fortunes changed.

In November 2008, ESPN bowled over Fox with a four-year, $495 million contract for the BCS — a bid that was $100 million higher than Fox’s. At the time, Fox Sports executives decided that they needed a multisport cable channel — or, more specifically, the affiliate revenue from such a network — to remain competitive with ESPN.

Fox Sports had three options. It could launch a new network, it could convert an existing network or it could acquire another network.

It wasn’t long before Fox Sports executives focused their sights on Speed. The well-distributed network was in about 73 million homes at the time and received 19 cents per subscriber per month. It had room to grow.

■ ■ ■

Rumors that Fox might convert Speed into an all-sports channel didn’t sweep through the network’s Charlotte headquarters until early 2012. Most staff members became aware of the possibility after reading media reports, which said that Fox executives had told Major League Baseball, the Pac-12 and other properties that they were planning to turn Speed into a multisport channel.

The news rocked the staff.

“There were a lot of people who moved from Connecticut to Charlotte and grew [the network] to what it is today,” said one former employee. “To possibly lose that was hard.”

The rumors persisted all year. Fox Sports executives addressed them in person last December when Fox Sports’ top two executives, co-presidents Randy Freer and Eric Shanks, traveled to Charlotte for an all-staff meeting. They assured Speed employees that the Charlotte production facility would play an important role in Fox Sports 1, according to Speed employees who attended the meeting. The executives said they would come back early next year to update the staff on their plans.

Speed employees left the meeting with mixed emotions.

“I was excited about the prospect of doing other sports. Other people were worried because all they had done is racing, and they didn’t know what that would mean for them,” said Scott Orner, a freelance director on the show “NASCAR RaceHub.”

Optimism about the future rose when workers began overhauling Speed’s three studios. One of the studios, which housed a set for “NASCAR RaceHub” and “Wind Tunnel,” was cleared at the beginning of the year. Those shows were shifted into the network’s two other studios, and the staff began to watch for what type of set would replace them.

Would it be college-themed? Or baseball? Or just an all-sports news set?

But months went by and the studio remained empty. Employees grew more concerned.

“There started to be talk that they wouldn’t be bringing in as much work as they were planning,” Orner said.

On March 10, more than five months before Fox Sports 1’s debut, the company issued a press release announcing its first day of programming on the new channel. Speed employees pored over the schedule. There was seven hours of NASCAR programming scheduled around a truck race in Michigan and a UFC fight in Boston. But the release alarmed some employees.

“Nothing was mentioned for Charlotte,” said one employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “That’s when we all started getting nervous.”

In a statement last week, Fox Sports said, “Change in the workplace is challenging, and every job lost in a transition of this type is significant. We’ve been as fair and communicative as possible given our plans at each step along the way.”

■ ■ ■

Fox brass returned to Charlotte for an all-staff meeting June 27. By then, Fox’s plans for Speed’s studios had changed. Scott Ackerson, Fox Sports’ executive vice president of studio production who was based in Los Angeles, met with the staff in the empty studio. He told them that two of Speed’s staple shows, “Wind Tunnel” and “Speed Center,” a motorsports highlight program, were being canceled. The shows rated poorly and brought in a much older demographic than Fox wanted for Fox Sports 1. Ackerson also announced that “NASCAR RaceHub” was going to be cut from an hour to a half-hour.

The meeting lasted less than 10 minutes. Many left it concerned that they might not have a job come August.

Speed Executive Vice President Steve Craddock relayed the news to freelancers two weeks later. He stood in front of a white board in a Speed conference room. He recounted Ackerson’s visit and explained what it meant, according to a video of the meeting that was viewed by SportsBusiness Journal.

Later in the 30-minute meeting, he added, “I can tell you that I have no idea what is going to happen in the next year. … Based on what [Shanks and Freer] said, this was a great place to make TV. It really came down to they ran out of money in starting this new network, to do all the things they had in their mind that they said they wanted to do, primarily a morning news show. They were going to do a morning news show here from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., and they just don’t have it in the budget to do that.”

Craddock took questions after he was done speaking.

An employee asked: Will there be cuts?

“I’m not so sure they’re finished making cuts here,” Craddock said. “That’s not to create fear or worry or concern. I just don’t know. If you look at the number of shows needed and the number of people … it’s hard to say. Scott [Ackerson] is still fighting for shows. Or at least jobs. I’m not so convinced they won’t say, ‘We need to do a college basketball show here.’ There’s a studio. There’s a lot of good people.”

Fox Sports, which declined to make any executives available, said in its statement: “Looking at this project as a whole, we’ve placed those displaced in new positions as often as possible, and the net job-gain at Fox Sports in the past six months is significant, including several new departments in Charlotte. We still expect Charlotte to be an integral part of Fox Sports 1 going forward, especially around our expanded NASCAR race package.”

■ ■ ■

On an overcast morning in Charlotte last week, the parking lot at Speed began to fill up shortly before 9 a.m. Employees climbed out of their cars and walked toward the office. Backpacks were slung over their shoulders. Lunch coolers were in their hands.

Fox began letting Speed employees go over the last few months. Others know their final day is later this month. But the parking lot remains full because Fox has begun hiring new staff, mostly in a graphics division that will remain in Charlotte and will be focused on developing promos and graphics packages for Fox Sports 1.

A Fox spokesman last week declined to comment on the number of Speed employees who had been let go or the number that had been hired.

Some Speed employees are frustrated with how the last year has played out. They’re annoyed with how little information they received. They’re hurt that Charlotte’s only national cable channel is going away. And they chafe at the unfulfilled promise that they would be a prominent part of FS1.

“You could have had a great news show out of Charlotte,” said one employee. “Instead, they paid a boatload for NASCAR, for the NFL, for baseball, for talent. I don’t get having a building sit empty.”

Others, like Adam Alexander, who was an on-air host for “Speed Center,” will be working on Fox Sports 1. Alexander will be calling college football games for the new channel.

“It’s not easy to lose your job,” he said. “It’s opened up some good opportunities. But there just aren’t enough holes for everyone.”

Many remain hopeful that changes and Fox Sports 1 eventually brings more studio work to Charlotte.

“It wasn’t personal,” Orner said. “It was a business decision. I’m hopeful there will be more work. It’s a great facility. It’s put out a great product for years. People higher up at Fox understand that, and I’m hopeful that once there’s more work that comes to Charlotte I can be a part of it.”

Quote:

FROM FOX SPORTS
Fox’s statement on the closing of Speed

“Change in the workplace is challenging, and every job lost in a transition of this type is significant. We’ve been as fair and communicative as possible given our plans at each step along the way. Looking at this project as a whole, we’ve placed those displaced in new positions as often as possible, and the net job-gain at Fox Sports in the past six months is significant, including several new departments in Charlotte. We still expect Charlotte to be an integral part of Fox Sports 1 going forward, especially around our expanded NASCAR race package.”

As much as we like to think motor sports is this huge entity with a virtually unlimited
audience of fans around the world, it really accounts for a literal drop in the ocean
compared to the stick and ball sports and other forms of entertainment.

We'd like to think that Speed in it's original form would have had a huge following
even though it played in very limited markets and many had to beg their cable or
satellite providers to put it on their menus. The sad fact is they probably generated
more income for the network selling air time to infomercials selling exercise
equipment and kitchen appliances than they did showing actual racing.

People working in media any amount of time understand one thing though, their gigs
can change in an instant at the discretion of a corporate board of directors so the Speed
staff in Charlotte should be happy at least, they had months to prepare rather than
a few minutes.

It was “our” channel. Whether you were a gearhead, a hot rodder, a racer, a rider, a pilot, a boater, or just an enthusiast of anything with a motor, New Year's Eve 1995 brought a television channel that was just for us. It was originally called Speedvision, later changing to Speed Channel before ultimately settling on simply Speed.

Started with a $100 million investment, Speedvision originally broadcast to 3.2 million homes. On its first day, founder Roger Werner sat with his small team in the control room overlooking the harbor in Stamford, Connecticut. “We were all extremely excited about it. Personally, I felt that we had realized a dream, a dream rattling in the back of my head for a decade or so. We could create a channel for guys like me, an electronic campfire for gearheads and speed freaks.” The key to the success of all incarnations of Speed was the passion of the people both behind and in front of the camera. That fervor fed the spirit that defined “our” channel.

But on August 17, that channel goes dark. Owner Fox will replace the red Speed logo with the blue branding of Fox Sports 1 (FS1), a 24-hour multisport network that will go head-to-head with ESPN. FS1 will operate under the mantra of “bringing the fun back.”

...

As for Roger Werner, the man who created “our” channel, and who is still rankled by the fact that he had to sell in 2001? Where will he be when the switch is flipped to FS1?